go-zero

go-zero is a web and rpc framework with lots of builtin engineering practices. It’s born to ensure the stability of the busy services with resilience design and has been serving sites with tens of millions of users for years.

🤷‍ What is go-zero?

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go-zero (listed in CNCF Landscape: https://landscape.cncf.io/?selected=go-zero) is a web and rpc framework with lots of builtin engineering practices. It’s born to ensure the stability of the busy services with resilience design and has been serving sites with tens of millions of users for years.

go-zero contains simple API description syntax and code generation tool called goctl. You can generate Go, iOS, Android, Kotlin, Dart, TypeScript, JavaScript from .api files with goctl.

Advantages of go-zero:

• Improves the stability of the services with tens of millions of daily active users
• Builtin chained timeout control, concurrency control, rate limit, adaptive circuit breaker, adaptive load shedding, even no configuration needed
• Builtin middlewares also can be integrated into your frameworks
• Simple API syntax, one command to generate a couple of different languages
• Auto validate the request parameters from clients
• Plenty of builtin microservice management and concurrent toolkits

Backgrounds of go-zero

In early 2018, we transitioned from a Java+MongoDB monolithic architecture to microservices, choosing:

• Golang - High performance, simple syntax, excellent deployment experience, and low resource consumption
• Self-designed microservice framework - Better problem isolation, easier feature extension, and faster issue resolution

Design considerations on go-zero

go-zero follows these core design principles:

• Simplicity - Keep it simple, first principle
• High availability - Stable under high concurrency
• Resilience - Failure-oriented programming with adaptive protection
• Developer friendly - Encapsulate complexity, one way to do one thing
• Easy to extend - Flexible architecture for growth

The implementation and features of go-zero

go-zero integrates engineering best practices:

• Code generation - Powerful tools to minimize boilerplate
• Simple API - Clean interfaces, fully compatible with net/http
• High performance - Optimized for speed and efficiency
• Resilience - Built-in circuit breaker, rate limiting, load shedding, timeout control
• Service mesh - Service discovery, load balancing, call tracing
• Developer tools - Auto parameter validation, cache management, metrics and monitoring

Architecture with go-zero

Installation

Run the following command under your project:

go get -u github.com/zeromicro/go-zero

AI-Native Development

The go-zero team provides AI tooling for Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor to generate framework-compliant code.

Three Core Projects

ai-context - Workflow guide for AI assistants

zero-skills - Pattern library with examples

mcp-zero - Code generation tools via Model Context Protocol

Quick Setup

GitHub Copilot

git submodule add https://github.com/zeromicro/ai-context.git .github/ai-context
ln -s ai-context/00-instructions.md .github/copilot-instructions.md  # macOS/Linux
# Windows: mklink .github\copilot-instructions.md .github\ai-context\00-instructions.md
git submodule update --remote .github/ai-context  # Update

Cursor

git submodule add https://github.com/zeromicro/ai-context.git .cursorrules
git submodule update --remote .cursorrules  # Update

Windsurf

git submodule add https://github.com/zeromicro/ai-context.git .windsurfrules
git submodule update --remote .windsurfrules  # Update

Claude Desktop

git clone https://github.com/zeromicro/mcp-zero.git && cd mcp-zero && go build
# Configure: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
# Or: claude mcp add --transport stdio mcp-zero --env GOCTL_PATH=/path/to/goctl -- /path/to/mcp-zero

How It Works

AI assistants use these tools together:

1. ai-context - workflow guidance
2. zero-skills - implementation patterns
3. mcp-zero - real-time code generation

Example: Creating a REST API → AI reads ai-context for workflow → calls mcp-zero to generate code → references zero-skills for patterns → produces production-ready code ✅

Quick Start

1. Full examples:

   Rapid development of microservice systems

   Rapid development of microservice systems - multiple RPCs

2. Install goctl

   # for Go
   go install github.com/zeromicro/go-zero/tools/goctl@latest
   
   # For Mac
   brew install goctl
   
   # docker for all platforms
   docker pull kevinwan/goctl
   # run goctl
   docker run --rm -it -v `pwd`:/app kevinwan/goctl --help
   

   Ensure goctl is executable and in your $PATH.

3. Create the API file (greet.api):

   type (
     Request {
       Name string `path:"name,options=[you,me]"` // parameters are auto validated
     }
   
     Response {
       Message string `json:"message"`
     }
   )
   
   service greet-api {
     @handler GreetHandler
     get /greet/from/:name(Request) returns (Response)
   }
   

   Generate .api template:

   goctl api -o greet.api
   

4. Generate Go server code

   goctl api go -api greet.api -dir greet
   

   Generated structure:

   ├── greet
   │   ├── etc
   │   │   └── greet-api.yaml        // configuration file
   │   ├── greet.go                  // main file
   │   └── internal
   │       ├── config
   │       │   └── config.go         // configuration definition
   │       ├── handler
   │       │   ├── greethandler.go   // get/put/post/delete routes are defined here
   │       │   └── routes.go         // routes list
   │       ├── logic
   │       │   └── greetlogic.go     // request logic can be written here
   │       ├── svc
   │       │   └── servicecontext.go // service context, mysql/redis can be passed in here
   │       └── types
   │           └── types.go          // request/response defined here
   └── greet.api                     // api description file
   

   Run the service:

   cd greet
   go mod tidy
   go run greet.go -f etc/greet-api.yaml
   

   Default port: 8888 (configurable in etc/greet-api.yaml)

   Test with curl:

   curl -i http://localhost:8888/greet/from/you
   

   Response:

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2020 15:32:35 GMT
   Content-Length: 0
   

5. Write business logic

   • Pass dependencies (mysql, redis, etc.) via servicecontext.go
   • Add logic code in the logic package per .api definition

6. Generate client code for multiple languages

   goctl api java -api greet.api -dir greet
   goctl api dart -api greet.api -dir greet
   ...
   

Benchmark

Checkout the test code

Documents

• Documents
• Rapid development of microservice systems
• Rapid development of microservice systems - multiple RPCs
• Examples

Chat group

Join the chat via https://discord.gg/4JQvC5A4Fe

Cloud Native Landscape

   

go-zero enlisted in the CNCF Cloud Native Landscape.

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